Featured Post

Alnwickdotes: No 5: The Fish and Chip Millionaire

When Saint Helena Island’s airport opens in 2016, a great
feature of life – the arrival of the RMS St Helena at the anchorage will
disappear.(The UK has wagered the
island’s future and self-sufficiency on a £192million (US$ 320m)
airport. It is a dramatic effort to bring in tourism and investment, without seemingly
taking note of the salutary experience of Norfolk Island in the Pacific and Australia.)

Jamestown is always abuzz when the ship arrives.Crowds line the seaside from the-landing
steps to the gate in to the town.Some
have returning loved-ones, others just want to see who’s coming and going.

Now this kind of tale is not unusual. Rumour and gossip are
an indispensible part of life there as anywhere in the world.Normally the far-fetched disappear, but not this tale. No doubt a Saint crewman from the RMS must have been pleased
with his efforts to get tongues wagging. Later I was in the
Consulate, the main hotel/bar.It was
crowded of course being a ship day.One
of the trio searched me out.She was looking
splendid, in her finery as if to go to a wedding, or for a job interview.They were out to impress the unwitting
millionaire.“Look him there!” She
pointed a finger in his direction, and she wasn’t the only one “giving him the
eye!”

Now I was expecting some star-studded celebrity, perhaps a
dapper tycoon, exuding wealth, flashing money around.Instead there was just an ordinary-looking
fella and his missus.I doubt if the
couple would be offended by me saying so.I declined the pleas to go to talk to them.Some Saints believe that a foreigner, would
want to talk to other foreigners, when of course, it is locals that
they want to meet. I left them to make their own introductions and questions
about bachelor sons, job-openings, etc.

The next day my path crossed again with the millionaire
couple.We exchanged pleasantries and a
chat about “their trip of a lifetime.”George
and Belle were on the Island for a few days, before continuing their
voyage.Inevitably, the place being so small, we met up yet again later. So I narrated the millionaire story.They had an inkling of it.George
laughed heartily.He said “Well, we’re
not short of a bob or two!” and added “From fish and chips!”Now up till this point I had no clue as to his
origins until he ended his sentence with “in Seahouses!”I immediately corrected his pronunciation
“You mean Seahoozes!”More
laughs. So there we were, this apparent millionaire, the wishful target of the island’s
most eligible beauties. He was from just 13 miles up the road from me in
Northumberland.Fate meant we met 4,900 miles
away on a tiny island in the South Atlantic. As a Northumbrian colleague
quipped “We get everywhere!”

Of course it was George Lewis of the well-known eponymous
fish and chip shop.George the Fish and
Chip Millionaire!

Now when I am in Seahouses, (as posh folks call it), there is
only one place I frequent, but oddly I remembered my cousin Juliette and husband
Rory, who live in South Africa, enthusing about “Lewis’s fish and chips - the
best that they had ever tasted”.George
despite all his years in Seahouses, hadn’t acquired the local accent.He and Belle told me about all the years of hard
work, sacrifice, and determination, to build up the business. Recently they had just handed it over to their
adopted son, and were now to enjoy their rewards in retirement.A few years later, they kindly hosted us in
Seahouses. The meal on-the-house was indeed splendid. George and I had a
friendly spar – was it “Fish, chips, mushy peas, cup tea, with bread’n marg” -
as I quipped. Or “Best butter, and spread on thick!” as he retorted,
“....not like some places!”, his head turning to look towards his erstwhile competitors, through the window.

As with most of my blogs, there is always a story-line
connection with what I do today in Cambodia and to overseas aid and
development.

I will say first of all that George must have worked much
harder, and over a longer period, than some millionaires, certain Lords of
Poverty, in the aid and development business. (My thanks to Dianne Abbott MP
for the accuracy of this claim.)

More pertinently I can’t help thinking that George, if he
hadn’t passed away sadly, would have been a great help as we continue to try to
introduce an entrepreneurial culture, and break from the hand-out mentality.Too many years of ineffective aid makes it
hard to move in this direction, on Saint Helena, in Cambodia, etc., the subject
of an earlier blog.

My colleague, Alan Morton, is leading our current
initiative - he is pictured, with inset, below.Alan is a volunteer arranged
through “Accounting for International Development”.Appropriately he’s called it:

Characteristics
of successful entrepreneurs

Best of luck with what our folks,
indigenous minorities, come up with, but I think George would advise them:

- Produce
a product that your customers want; is good value; consistent quality, and
enough profit.

- Make
sure you have a market for it.

Now with Seahouses graced by several fish and chip
establishments, as well as other good eating options, there are two things to
add, the second expressed delightfully in aid & development jargon [in
brackets]

- The
ability to compete amid fair competition.

- Moral: “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day; teach him to fish,
he’ll eat for a lifetime [Sustainability],
notwithstanding over-fishing, etc.If he
then cooks and sells the fish, he’ll make more money [Value Chain Analysis].

For poor Cambodians, the inability to compete on a level
playing-field, is probably the hardest challenge they face. It’s one of worst
countries in the world for doing business, 135th
of 189.

Please imagine how much harder it is in remote areas with
poor communications, far from Phnom Penh where these surveys are done mainly. As
I mentioned in another blog, competitors pass off goods that are not authentic
indigenous products.Even Mondulkiri’s excellent coffee has its bogus imitations.

But with luck and persistence, maybe out there we will see more lifetimes-of-effort producing new millionaires.

Footnote on Saint Helena:My paper was
circulated around Saint Helena earlier this year on the folly of
relying on such a narrow and short-term approach to development. It
could do irreparable harm to the Saints' unique culture. I am of course
opposed to the constant belief of UK and other Western aid experts they
have the right answers, rather than helping local people devise their
own solutions. My earliest experiences on the island from 1985 showed
just how wrong they can be! For that, I was nicknamed "the Saint Helena Milkman!